Even on the grand scale of Kevin Pietersen days this was a notably Kevin Pietersen-ish day for England at Old Trafford. Throughout this Ashes summer there has been an expectation that England's most unignorably box-office middle-order princeling must at some stage come to the fore and dust the series with his own peculiar sense of event glamour. The opening day of the first Test came and went without a stir, as did the grand stage of Lord's.

Pietersen, as it turns out – and by delightful coincidence – was saving himself for an equally important but somehow rather more KP-ish occasion. A year ago this weekend Pietersen scored a brilliant hundred against South Africa at Headingley just as his England career seemed to be disintegrating beneath him like a rickety string bridge over a cartoon ravine, spur for that operatic "It's not easy being me" press conference and Pietersen's own subsequent Garbo-ish semi-retirement. A year minus one day later he scored an initially skittish, increasingly destructive, ultimately masterly hundred at Old Trafford on the third day of this third Ashes Test that could yet prove the most significant contribution to England saving this Test.

The hundred clocked in at a routinely brisk 165 balls with 10 fours and two sixes and arrived in grand, easy style, a Mitchell Starc long-hop uppercut over backward point with a beautifully supple flourish of the wrists. Pietersen removed his helmet, spread his arms, pointed to various corners of the crowd and generally basked in an ovation that was warm and prolonged, albeit no more so than the one Michael Clarke received for his hundred the previous day.

"It"s a nice personal achievement," Pietersen said afterwards, in full post-reintegration mode. "But it will only mean something if we get something out of this game." It was, though, a significant innings personally: a 23rd Test hundred to take him past Walter Hammond, Colin Cowdrey and Geoffrey Boycott on England's all-time list, having played fewer matches than the last two, but twelve more than Hammond, who scored his final Test century two weeks before the start of World War Two. For all his foibles there can be no doubt that Pietersen is one of the great post-war England middle order batsmen, perhaps even the greatest.

For England the best part of a middling batting day against a spirited and varied attack came in a partnership of 115 between Pietersen and Ian Bell, who made 60 playing with such a wonderfully gentle sense of perfect touch that the bowlers must have felt at times they were being very carefully tickled to death. Pietersen, on the other hand, simply provided another draught of that mixed and flowing substance that is KP, arriving at the crease with England on 64 for three, and going on to dish up a compelling mixture of those familiar disdainful attacking strokes – where suddenly the game looks too easy, the ground too small, the bowlers too mortal – and the kind of scratchiness that brings to mind a slightly drunken uncle playing French cricket on the lawn after tea. He groped horribly at his first three balls before digging out the fourth to get off the mark with a single to fine-leg.

Pietersen is advertising for the first time on the back of his bat his brother's cocktail bar Purl, which warns on its menu that its cocktails are "not suitable for those with a sensitive disposition". In his first hour at the crease much the same could be said of Pietersen's batting, his foot movement groggy as he unveiled the first in a series of Surrey cuts – at one stage producing an outrageous Surrey Flamingo though his own legs – as Peter Siddle in particular sought out that tempting front pad.

As England continued to creep rather meekly though the morning Pietersen wafted once or twice at Mitchell Starc, before finally getting going with his second four from his 20th ball, assisted on this occasion by David Warner, who tried to throw down the stumps from midwicket as Pietersen stretched to make his ground with all the athletic élan of a 69-year-old man reaching for the corned beef shelf in his local Aldi, the ball skidding away for overthrows. A square drive that was all wrists and hands brought up England's hundred for the loss of three wickets, and by now Pietersen was playing forward with his favoured exaggerated stride, driving Harris past mid-off with a bat that was zealously perpendicular.

It is a truism that KP generally comes good when he hits the ball straight, but it is also true. Successive sixes off Nathan Lyon, the first over long-on, the second over long-off, scattering a squadron of police by the old pavilion, took him to 54 off 71 balls. Next ball he played a horrible standing prod at an excellent flatter, quicker delivery from Lyon and might have played on. England were still 179 runs away from saving the follow on.

It's not easy being him. Sometimes it's also not easy watching him. There was one obvious let-off on 64 as Pietersen jumped out to whip Shane Watson through midwicket and was hit on his front pad. With the game in the balance and two reviews in the bag Clarke accepted Tony Hill's not-out verdict, then grimaced as Australia's balcony indicated the ball would have hit the stumps.

Having reached his hundred Pietersen's energy levels seemed to drop as he produced five scoring shots from 41 balls before being given out lbw for 113 to a ball from Harris he might have faintly nicked.

Bell, who had been playing after lunch not just like a million dollars but like the complete combined global reserves of crude oil, had also departed rather suddenly, and for all Pietersen's efforts England are still parlously placed in this match.